The electronic edition is a part of the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American
South.

Languages used in the text:
English
Latin

Revision history:

2005-04-25, Brian Dietz finished TEI/XML encoding.

Part of a series:
This transcribed document is part of a digital collection, titled True and Candid
Compositions: The Lives and Writings of Antebellum Students in North
Carolina
written by
Lindemann, Erika

Source(s):

Title of collection: Sally Long Jarman Papers (#4005), Southern Historical Collection,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Note:
Call number 4005 (Southern Historical
Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill)

Topics covered: Education/Goals and PurposesPolitics and Government/Political IssuesReading and Writing/ReadingExamples of Student Writing/Compositions, Examples ofReligion and Philosophy/Christianity and Christian Theology

Editorial practicesThe text has been encoded using the recommendations for Level 5 of
the TEI in Libraries Guidelines. Transcript of the class composition. Originals are in the Southern
Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Original grammar, punctuation, and spelling have been preserved.DocSouth staff created a 600 dpi uncompressed TIFF file for each image. The TIFF images were then saved as JPEG images at 100 dpi for web access.Page images can be viewed and compared in parallel with the
text.Any hyphens occurring in line breaks have been removed, and the
trailing part of a word has been joined to the preceding line.Letters, words and passages marked as deleted or added in originals
have been encoded accordingly.All quotation marks, em dashes and ampersand have been transcribed
as entity references.All double right and left quotation marks are encoded as ".All single right and left quotation marks are encoded as '.All em dashes are encoded as —.Indentation in lines has not been preserved.

For more information about transcription and other editorial decisions,
see Dr. Erika Lindemann's explanation under the section Editorial Practices.

Document Summary

Mason's composition interprets the proverb, "The Eagle Doesn't
Catch Flies," as referring to the eagle's selectivity in choosing noble
animals, not flies, for his prey. A preeminent symbol in Greek mythology and
Christianity, the eagle teaches us to develop characters that show fixedness of
purpose, choose the best pursuits in life, and aspire to greatness.

It is a fact, worthy of notice, that while the eagle3 is,
of all birds, the most4
merciless towards and eager after5 his
prey, he nevertheless makes good choice of it, in selecting the noblest animals
that come within reach of his cruel talons. With his airie6 upon
the mountains, and his home among the clouds, he scorns, as it were, to devour
the little insect that he may meet with in his flight, or to descend upon the
piteous worm that crawls the earth. As if really feeling himself king of birds,
he seems to have higher aspirations than to destroy so mean a creature as a
fly. He would not degrade his noble young by bringing them such humble food;
but would, with revolting cruelty, bare7
through the air the bleating lamb or wailing infant, as a triumphant conqueror
returning from the field of conquest.8 The
God of Nature has
placed within his breast a noble instinct that guides him in a brighter career,
and teaches him that there is no glory in destroying a creature so much weaker
than himself. He will not pollute his throne by the blood of the9
meaner creatures: his noble instinct forbids.10

It is for this reason that he has always been styled king of birds,
and has obtained the sceptre over them. He has been represented in fable as
leading their armies out to battle. He is said, in Greek mythology, to have
been employed by
Jupiter to
snatch the yellow-haired
Ganymede from
his flocks and transport him to heaven to be his future cup-bearer. He is also
represented with
Jove's
thunderbolts in his talons, the messengers of his direful wrath.

1 verso page

Page 2

Powerful nations have felt proud to have the eagle
represented as bearing in his talons their banner, emblematic of the prosperity
that should attend their country, and their rank among other nations. He has
been stamped upon their coin, as though his mere image would promote it's
currency. And still more to his glory, our blessed
Lord has not
forgotten to remind the disconsolate
children of
Israel to be faithful in the observance of his laws since he had brought
them out from the lands of
Egypt on
"eagle's wings".11 The
eagle then seems to be the type of all that is most noble and good: of liberty,
learning and
christianity, all three combined in the star-spangled
banner which he may be said to have borne so nobly for the last eighty years,
of constancy and durability which his image upon our coin implies, of vengeance
upon the wicked and unjust, as the carrier of
Jove's
thunderbolt, and, above all, of that sentiment which pervades the whole of12
sacred writings, and which has thrown a halo of glory around the
Messiah's name,
protective to the poor and oppressed: "Ye have seen what I did unto the
Egyptians,
and how I bare you on eagle's wings and brought you
to myself".13
What a glorious picture is this for the poet or the painter: The mighty eagle
of
Christianity bearing on his outstretched pinions the
care-worn
Israelites
from the oppression of
Pharaoh,
through the wilderness, for forty long years of trial and trouble, and placing
them at last in the
Canaan of their
hopes, "a land flowing with milk and honey"14—in the very bosom of their
God! What a noble
office is the eagle here represented as performing: carrying on his wings
God's chosen
people! Many are the types of nobility which his character has procured him,
among the other birds.

Page 3

And why has he thus been so
distinguished? Because he never stops to catch flies. Because he has high
aspirations, congenial with the clouds upon which he rides, and the mountain
tops upon which he rests. His character, to use the expression, has constituted
him king of the birds, and he sits, as a wise ruler upon his throne, dispensing
justice.

From these simple words, "The Eagle doesnt catch flies", a
moral lesson is taught the human race. The eagle, by his qualities, has
obtained preeminence among the other birds, and if we wish to be preeminent
with our own kind, we must try to possess similar qualities. Let us see what
these are15 in
order that we may try to ingraft them into16 our
own natures. In the first place the moral inculcates that only sure guide to
prosperity and happiness, fixedness of purpose and resolution. without this a
man can certainly attain to nothing great or good. As the eagle descries the
object of prey, worthy of it's talons, and then darts upon it with a velocity
that heeds not small obstacles, so we must find out some noble object of
pursuit, and then set out resolutely to obtain it. We must not stop at every
little thing on the way-side, that asks for some attention; for if we do, we
will17 be
like a traveller who sets out on a journey to some beautiful city, but sees so
many things to admire on the way that he never reaches his journey's end, and
dies with broken hopes. If we see a beautiful object in the distance, and
obstacles intervene so that we are unwilling to approach it, it will never come
to us. Fixedness of purpose and resolution will alone carry a person

Page 4

well through this life of change and chance. Without
these,18 we
are a cipher. Those lines of
Byron, in a translation of an ode of
Horace, should
ever be before our eyes:

The man of firm and fixed resolve
No factious clamors can control
No Tyrant, by his threatening nod
Can swerve him from his just intent.19

As the eagle shows discretion in selecting the object of
prey, so ought we to use discretion in chosing the best pursuits in life, and
especially in the training of our moral and intellectual faculties, pruning20 the
evil and cultivating the good. When we are about to enter upon life we stand at
the intersection of four wide roads; the one leading to ruin and misery, another to earthly
happiness, another to earthly glory, and the fourth to glory and happiness, in
heaven and on earth, combined. We need discretion then to select one of the
four. We must not catch a fly. Again, life is a garden of various flowers, all
equally beautiful; but some containing the
poison of those meaner passions which corrupt man's heart. We need discretion
then lest, like the poor bird that falls beneath the fatal Upas tree, we inhale
some of these noxious odors, ere we are aware.

Our moral also teaches us to have high aspirations. The noble bird
does not catch flies, neither ought we to catch trifling things. We are created
with a loftier statue21
than the rest of the animals, and all our thoughts and actions should be lofty
also. High aspirations have made all our great and good mean, have raised many
from the lowest depth of poverty and ignorance. As the small essence of the
acorn, hardly breaking at first the earth's crust, and aspiring, as it were, to
sweep the

Page 5

very floor of heaven with its branches,
becomes a mighty oak, so we, though weak at first, must turn our eyes, our
body, our thoughts upward, and we will22 be
the tall oak, 'neath whose branches the weary and oppressed will delight to
sit. If we aspire to something great or good, ambition is apt to urge us on to
it, as it did
Jason in search of the "Golden
Fleece",
Aeneas in search
of the oracle—told loud of
Italy, and
Columbus in search of our own country. Had he not have23 had
high aspirations to confer a great benefit on the human race, this goodly land
of ours might still have been buried, as it were, in the depths of the ocean.
Lastly since our moral teaches us to have high aspirations and fixedness of
purpose, it may be said to teach us everything that is great and good. Then
let learning and
Christianity be our aspirations, moral courage and faith
our watch-word, and prosperity on earth, happiness in heaven will be ours.

11.
Exodus 19:4 :
"Ye have seen what I did unto the
Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and
brought you to myself."Wheat pencilled an X after this sentence to indicate an
insertion, the text of which he wrote on the verso of the previous page:
"Again in
Rev. a 'flying
eagle' is one of the four beasts that are before the throne, symbolizing the
Gospel agencies
that are hastening the coming of the
Millenium."